It's the first skerry. It is Norway,
at last!
Peer felt a sudden catch in his breath; he could hardly stand still, but
he stopped again and again in his walk to look once more at the far-off
strip of grey. And now there were seabirds too, with long necks and
swiftly-beating wings. Welcome home!
And now the steamer is ploughing in among the skerries, and a world
of rocks and islets unfolds on every side. There is the first red
fisher-hut. And then the entrance to Christiansand, between wooded hills
and islands, where white cottages shine out, each with its patch of
green grassland and its flagstaff before it.
Peer watched it all, drinking it in like nourishment. How good it all
tasted--he felt it would be long before he had drunk his fill.
Then came the voyage up along the coast, all through a day of brilliant
sunshine and a luminous night. He saw the blue sounds with swarms of
white gulls hovering above them, the little coast-towns with their long
white-painted wooden houses, and flowers in the windows. He had never
passed this way before, and yet something in him seemed to nod and say:
"I know myself again here." All the way up the Christiania Fjord there
was the scent of leaves and meadows; big farms stood by the shore
shining in the sun. This was what a great farm looked like. He
nodded again. So warm and fruitful it all seemed, and dear to him as
home--though he knew that, after all, he would be little better than a
tourist in his own country.
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